Electronic water conditioners (EWC) are based on the use of an induced electrical field that fluctuates with time. An EWC device is usually composed of one or several wires wrapped around a feed pipe to a heat exchanger, forming a solenoid. The two ends of each wire are connected to the EWC control unit, which produces a pulsing current to create time-varying magnetic field, a phenomenon that can be described by Faraday’s law. In order to maximise the induction, a pulsing current having a square-waved signal is used. The frequency of the signal has to be adapted in order to minimise the self induction caused by the solenoid coil. Cho et al. proposed the following mechanism describing the action of EWC. The effect of the induced electric field, which oscillates with time, is to provide the necessary molecular agitation to charged mineral ions such as calcium and bicarbonate so that they collide and precipitate. The precipitated nuclear and the heat exchanger surface compete for dissolved mineral ions. Since the combined surface area of the nuclei can be greater by several orders of magnitude than the surface area of the heat-exchanger, the fouling at the heat exchanger surface is prevented. Whilst there are many reports of magnetic water treatment there are few about EWC technology although published claims include effective scale prevention, reduced speed of scale formation, scale reduction and preferential formation of a less adherent scale, which is then more easily removed.
This section contains results of the hardness reduction trials and also a series of semi-quantitative foaming tests to demonstrate whether water treated by an electronic conditioner and an ion exchange softener has the characteristics of soft water.

Hardness Reduction trials
Results of the trials are shown in table 6. The results show the % reduction in calcium levels in the treated sample in comparison with the feed concentration (calculated from (feed0treated)/feed x 100%). The IEX removes on average over 90% of the calcium from the feed stream irrespective of feed concentration. The performance is very reproducible as shown by the very low standard deviation. The EWC shows no reduction in calcium concentration. This has been shown for all the treated samples, whether just collected, heated or heated and filtered. The standard deviations shown for the EWC tests are higher and more variable than observed in the IEX tests.

Summary of test results showing % reduction in calcium for EWC and the IEX. In summary these tests have shown that over the range of conditions tested the EWC has not reduced the hardness of the test water and so does not soften hard water.